Turkey is hosting the largest number of Syrian refugees in the world.
European Parliament President Martin Schulz told reporters at an EU-Turkey summit in Brussels on Monday that the parliament was prepared to discuss speeding up visa-free travel for Turkish citizens.
"Visa liberalization is one of the requests of the Turkish side in the process of full and deepened cooperation," Schulz said. "We are prepared to discuss to speed up the procedure but in full respect of the parliamentarian rights of the European parliament."
The EU has already pledged 3 billion euros to meet the needs of Syrian refugees hosted in Turkey along with visa liberalization and the acceleration of the candidate country’s accession process.
In exchange, the EU expected Turkey to crack down on human smugglers and stem the flow of refugees coming into Europe via its neighbor Greece.
Schulz said Turkey’s request for additional 3 billion euros required the cooperation of the European parliament.
He said providing refugees in Turkey with an additional 3 billion euros depended on whether EU member states were "willing to put money on the table".
Turkey has said Monday`s summit in Brussels should not only focus on irregular migration but also on Turkey`s accession into the EU. Schulz said there had been an attempt to link the two issues together.
"One thing is [clear] for us as European parliamentarians […] we have to separate accession negotiations between Turkey and EU and all questions related to opening the new chapters from the short term management of [the] refugee crisis," Schulz said.
“To avoid that refugees arrive in Greece, we have to cooperate with Turkey,” French President Francois Hollande told reporters in Brussels.
In exchange for the 3 billion euros that were allocated to it by the EU, Turkey must "make commitments in relation to the fight against smugglers" and conduct readmissions of "a number of migrants who left Turkey"to Europe, explained Hollande .
"The plan is simple to tell, hard to implement: it`s external border security, cooperation with Turkey and solidarity with Greece, and that is what France will defend," summarized the French leader.
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